I like this one, Russ. Has a warm, homey feel to it. Have to ask, tho, who's the gentleman holding the baby in the pic?

This pic reminds me a bit of a local photographer, Kathleen McFadden, one of whose dinner table 'still life' photos hangs on our wall. You may have met her, as she used to have a shop in Manitou (she's since moved to Old Colorado City).

Where's your home, John? I'm a Manitouan; in fact I was mayor of the town from 1980 to 86, and on the council for two years before that. I know Kathleen. She probably doesn't remember my name but I've had some fairly long chats with her, both in Manitou and in Old Colorado City. I really admire her work. You may also be familiar with my friend, Mark Kemper, who was one of the finest wedding photogs in the area until the recession pretty much shut him down. I had an office down the hall from him across from Acacia Park in Colorado Springs for a decade or so.

The guy in the picture is me. The baby is one of my nine grandsons who's now in the Air Force and in language school, learning Mandarin Chinese.

I didn't set up the still life. I just lighted it. My wife does stuff like this all over the house, both down here in Florida in the winter and up there in Manitou in the summer.

Russ, my wife and I have lived here in the Springs since 86. We first wandered into Kathleen's little place in Manitou a few years back. We now own 4 of her photos, and we also go to her for framing and ink buying. I'm afraid I don't know Mark. BTW, your wife has a good eye for design.

nemo295

It's a handsome shot. If it were me I would have moved the table and lamp forward from the wall by about a foot so the lampshade wasn't scrunched up against the wall and to soften the lamp's light wash on the wall.

You're probably right, Eric. But, like most of us, I already have more cameras than I really need. On the other hand, I made the shot with the D3, which just came back from Nikon repair. I should have used the D800 and set the aspect ratio at 4 x 5. It'd still be a crop, but I wouldn't have to call it a crop.

As most of you guys know, this isn't the kind of thing I usually do. My real passion is street photography, but for one reason or another, this winter I haven't been able to get to a place or a situation where that kind of thing is possible. So I'm trying new things. Actually more revived than new, since I used to do this kind of thing a lot back in the sixties.

Marv, if distance is the problem, cropping ought to be able to demonstrate what you mean. Show me what you'd crop out of the scene by moving closer. I'm always interested in new ideas.

Doug. Several problems with moving the whole rig away from the wall: (1) To do that I'd have had to rearrange the whole end of the living room. There's a heavy couch directly in front of the camera and I'm shooting over it. (2) Just outside the frame are things like windows, curtains, wall switches, etc., that couldn't reasonably be taken out in post-processing. (3) I wanted the light's wash on the wall. I made some shots with the light off, but I wasn't happy with them.

It looks as if most of the light in this picture is coming from the lamp, but, in fact, there's a CTO-gelled SB 910 in a large softbox, high and at the edge of the frame, camera left, a CTO-gelled SB 700 lower and in a smaller softbox, camera right, and a CTO-gelled SB 600 on the floor in the corner, pointing up. All the speedlights were dialed way down to keep from throwing shadows or spoiling the cone of light from the lamp.

John, You may be right about the top. I'll whack it down to square format and see. Unfortunately, there's a too much detail lower down that would be a problem: baseboards, lamp cord with foot switch, etc. That stuff is in the original with its 2 x 3 aspect ratio, but I cropped it out. On the other hand, the table's legs are beautifully twisty, so maybe one of these days I can get the thing into a less cluttered corner and balance it better.

Unfortunately, I am not proficient enough with this forum stuff to be able to take the photo and crop it for you to see. However, I think the items (and lighting on those items) on the table are interesting enough to move in closer to be able to really see them (i.e. the subtle shadow thrown by the eyeglasses on the open book and the interweaving of light and dark of the coral - if it is coral). Except for the warm light it gives, I don't think there is any value to the light stand/shade or the wall art and the empty wall above them don't add anything, so I would be inclined to recompose in a landscape format and catch everything below the shade. The wall hanging would have to be temporarily moved and the plant would get a bit of the top cut off but I don't think that would be a big deal.